Wantagh girls brighten teens’ Christmas holidays

Help Theissen Foundation expand offerings

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After a visit to the John Theissen Children’s Foundation with their Girl Scout troop two years ago, Alexa Dowden and Isabel Rana, of Wantagh, realized that the foundation received hardly any donations for teenagers.

They decided to change that.

“As part of the tour, [Theissen] took us into the ‘wish room,’” recalled Alexa’s mother, Angela Dowden. “There’s a shelf that’s specifically marked for teenagers, and that shelf was fairly empty.”

The Theissen Foundation was founded in 1992 to help sick and underprivileged children and their families. The paucity of donations for teens sparked the girls’ inspiration, last November, to create a program to remedy the problem to fulfill the requirements of their Girl Scout Juniors Bronze Award project.

The Bronze Award is the highest distinction in Girl Scout Juniors. First, scouts “go on a journey,” according to the official guidelines. Next, they assemble a team and explore their community, looking for a need to fill. Finally, they lead their teams in the actual project.

Alexa and Isabel didn’t want to wait until they finished the project before collecting donations for the foundation. In December 2016, the girls, now 11, went to Target with their Girl Scout troop to buy items that they donated for the teen shelf, Angela Dowden said.

The girls’ scout troop disbanded before they could finish their Bronze project, she said, but they both wanted to continue filling that shelf. So they met with Theissen before Thanksgiving last year to discuss the idea of creating what they called “pamper packages.”

Theissen suggested that the girls name the program to make it their own. Alexa and Isabel, with Angela Dowden’s help, came up with the name Tinsel for Teens. The girls color-coordinated and created

a theme for the packages, and held three fundraisers with the goal of creating

30 pamper packages. Eventually, they

created more than 150 packages.

“The support from the community, as a mother, was just overwhelming,” Dowden said. “I couldn’t believe the generosity. I couldn’t believe the response they got.”

Theissen’s help was decisive in getting the project going, she added. “While the tour to the foundation was the inspiration for the girls, he’s provided support, guidance and connections,” she said. “From the moment Alexa and Isabel met with him about their idea last November, he encouraged them to come up with a name, follow their hearts, and make it their own program.”

The girls attended a holiday party last Dec. 15 at the Nassau University Medical Center, according to Dowden. Patients, and their families, who have chronic medical issues and visit the hospital frequently attended the party by invitation only, Dowden believed. The girls handed out half of the pamper packages to the teenagers who attended, and left some behind for those who were too sick to come.

Two teenage girls in particular made Alexa and Isabel feel special, Dowden recounted. “They were like ‘You created these? These are beautiful! Can we take pictures with you?’”

Even after the girls received their Bronze Awards in May, they wanted to continue the Tinsel for Teens program, Dowden said. “It ended up being a very rewarding experience at 10 years old,” she said. “. . . Immediately after the party they got in the car and said, ‘We want to do this again next year.’”

Dowden said she feels “blown away” watching them create and cultivate Tinsel for Teens. “I am so proud of the girls. The kindness and compassion they have demonstrated at such a young age amazes me.”

Isabel’s mother, Tracey Rana, agreed. “For two 10-year-old girls to do that, to me, was just outstanding,” she said, describing the girls standing in the cold during

last year’s donation days. “You don’t find many 10-year-old girls that want to do things like that. ”

Alexa said she and Isabel had a lot of fun making the packages and shopping for items last year. “It also made us feel really good, and helping others made us feel good,” she said, “so we really wanted to do more to help.”

Isabel said that giving sick and underprivileged teenagers a happy holiday made her feel “really warm. I don’t like when people get left out . . . so I’m really happy that we get to donate things,” she said.

The pair collect items like Bath and Body Works products, fuzzy socks

and lotions for girls; and fuzzy flannel pajama pants, playing cards and sports itemsfor boys.

This year, the girls are in a new Girl Scout Troop 3272, which has partnered with them to help at the donation sites. Their goal this year is to create 300 pamper packages. So far, they have collected more than $500 in cash donations and 400 items for the packages, according to Dowden.

“Now that we’re in a whole big troop, and there’s 10 to 14 other girls we know, we can definitely make a lot more,” Isabel said of the packages. “If we reach our goal, that’s amazing. But if we don’t, it’s still definitely a lot.”